May 2021
New Report: Customer Debt and Declining Revenues: The Financial Impacts of COVID-19 on Small Community Water Systems
The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on some small community water systems in the U.S., finds a new report co-authored by the Pacific Institute. The report finds that in some cases, small community water system losses led to water systems operating at a deficit, delaying maintenance and capital projects, or increasing rates for customers, with revenue losses of up to 30%. Providing financial assistance at the federal level would boost small community water system resilience, ensuring access to safe, affordable water for the millions of Americans who rely on these systems.

Learn more, including other potential solutions, here.
Blog Post: The Impacts of the Pandemic Remain for Small Water Systems and Customers In-Debt
How can we ensure small community water systems are resilient when facing current and future financial challenges, and can continue to provide reliable, affordable access to water and sanitation for the millions of Americans who rely on them?

Read the blog post here.
New Report: Setting Enterprise Water Targets: A Guide for Companies
The CEO Water Mandate, along with partners World Resources Institute, the Pacific Institute, CDP, The Nature Conservancy, and WWF yesterday released a new guide on setting water targets at the enterprise level, intended to help companies do their part to address shared water challenges—and to focus their efforts in the right high-priority places. The guide introduces a three-step process for how companies can set water targets at the enterprise level that address the most material water-related risks in the places that matter the most across a company’s value chain.

Learn more here.
Update from the CEO Water Mandate: Profiles in Leadership: Dow and Jim Fitterling
The Pacific Institute is Co-Secretariat of the CEO Water Mandate, a UN Global Compact initiative that mobilizes business leaders on water, sanitation, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 
The Water Resilience Coalition, a CEO Water Mandate initiative, has released the second installment of its Profiles in Leadership series. In this installment, Dow CEO Jim Fitterling explains what his company is doing to enhance water resilience.

Learn more here.
Webinar Today: Virtual Roundtable on the Salton Sea
California's Salton Sea faces a host of challenges, including a declining water supply, rising salinity, very high levels of nutrients that generate excessive algal growth and very low oxygen levels, and a glaring disconnect between the rate of change and the rate of efforts to address that change. Join us for a virtual roundtable on the future of the Salton Sea, featuring:
  • Wade Crowfoot, Secretary, California Natural Resources Agency;
  • Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, California;
  • Joaquin Esquivel, Chair, California State Water Resources Control Board; and
  • Adriana Torres, Youth Advocate.
 
Date: May 25, 1:00-2:00PM PT
View the webinar here. There is no need to register.
From the Mountains to the Sea: A New Map of the Colorado River Basin
The Colorado River Basin is the lifeblood of the West, providing water to more than 40 million people in seven U.S. states and two states in Mexico. Pacific Institute Senior Researcher Michael Cohen provided extensive review and edits of an important new map from the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy that covers the full extent of the Colorado River Basin. "Maps are powerful and often unacknowledged tools shaping our perceptions of the landscape," says Cohen. "The Babbitt Center's new Colorado River Basin map greatly improves our understanding of the iconic river that sustains the West and of the many dynamic elements at play."

View the map here.
From the Blog: Pacific Institute Insights
Pacific Institute in the News: Focus on the California Drought
KCBS: Special Report: California's Emerging Drought Crisis

KCBS: Learning to Live in a Drier California

The Guardian: From Dust Bowl to California Drought: A Climate Scientist on the Lessons We Still Haven’t Learned

CalMatters: Running Out of Water and Time: How Unprepared is California for 2021’s Drought?

KQED: Most of California is in Extreme or Severe Categories of Drought

Read more news featuring Pacific Institute research and experts here.
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